A decade after animal welfare violations were initially documented and more than two years of legal proceedings, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has revoked the license of Cricket Hollow Zoo near Manchester, Iowa, and fined owners Thomas and Pamela Sellner $10,000.

The USDA decision announced November 30 would appear to spell the end of operations at the troubled facility since the zoo must have a USDA license to continue to operate.

After four days of testimony pitting U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials against Cricket Hollow Zoo owners, an administrative law judge will decide later this spring if the roadside zoo near Manchester, Iowa will retain its federal license.

The hearing before the administrative law judge was held in Davenport beginning Tuesday (1/24) and included testimony from USDA Veterinarian and Inspector Heather Cole, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Compliance Investigator Doug Anderson, zoo owners Tom and Pamela Sellner and Robert Gibbens, Western Regional Director of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in Fort Collins, CO.

The USDA complaint against Cricket Hollow runs more than 20 pages and cites dozens of violations of the Animal Welfare Acts (AWA) by the zoo in 2014 and 2015.

An Iowa man visiting the Cricket Hollow Zoo with his two children June 24 says in court documents one of the roadside zoo's two lions "was in such a terrible condition that both children and myself feared that she would die at any moment."

"We didn't need to get too close to her cage to know that there was something terribly wrong with her, because she just stood in one corner of her cage shivering even though she was in direct sunlight," Jeff Marlin, of Hiawatha, Iowa, testified in a court filing seeking immediate removal of the now-endangered animals from the troubled zoo near Manchester.

The owners of the troubled Cricket Hollow Zoo have appealed the federal court ruling issued Feb. 11 which ordered removal of the zoo's lemurs and tigers because of inadequate veterinary care and sanitation for the endangered animals.

Owners Tom and Pamela Sellner, of Manchester, filed the notice of appeal with the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis March 9. The appeal seeks to reverse the lower court decision, halt the removal of endangered animals from the zoo and lift the court's order prohibiting the Sellners from adding endangered animals to their roadside zoo.

More than three dozen camels, sheep, llamas and cattle at the Cricket Hollow Zoo near Manchester, Iowa where found living in enclosures with mud so deep their legs sunk half to all the way down into the muck, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) May inspection report.

Owners of the troubled Cricket Hollow Zoo near Manchester, Iowa, now face new federal charges of inadequate veterinary care of their animals and "repeated failures to meet minimum standards for animal facilities and husbandry."

A federal lawsuit seeking to remove endangered animals from the troubled Cricket Hollow Zoo near Manchester will proceed to trial in October after the judge denied a motion for summary judgement filed by animal welfare attorneys.

Chief Magistrate Judge Jon Stuart Scoles heard nearly an hour of oral arguments Thursday (8/6) before denying the motion and setting a pre-trail conference for Sept. 29. The bench trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 5 in U.S. District Court, Northern District, in Cedar Rapids.

The federal inspection of Cricket Hollow Zoo in May found something troubling enough to temporarily suspend the facility's license, but exactly what prompted the closure won't be known until an appeal of the findings is complete later this month.

Federal officials have suspended the license of Cricket Hollow Zoo, the "roadside" zoo near Manchester, Iowa, which has been cited repeatedly for animal welfare violations over the past five years.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) June 16 placed the zoo under a 21-day suspension. No explanation was given for the suspension, and calls and emails to USDA officials were not immediately returned. The suspension is to expire today, July 7.

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Iowa District Court Judge John Telleen gave preliminary approval of the... more